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The Honest Take is HonestReporting's long-form interview series bringing together leading voices to examine how Israel and the Middle East are covered — and what goes into creating and feeding the narratives that target Israel.
Each episode features leading experts, analysts, researchers, and journalists who work on media bias, terrorism, NGO accountability, foreign influence, antisemitism, and international institutions. These are professionals directly involved in investigating how narratives are shaped, amplified, and protected across global newsrooms.
The conversations go beyond breaking news to unpack:
• Media bias and misinformation about Israel
• How terrorist organizations exploit humanitarian and civil society frameworks
• The role of NGOs and international bodies in shaping public perception
• Foreign state influence on Western media and education
• Why context disappears in reporting on Israel and the Palestinians
This series is for listeners seeking in-depth analysis, evidence-based discussion, and accountability in journalism on Israel and the Middle East.
THT Hillel Neuer Fine Cut.txt
English (US)
00:00:16.560 — 00:00:40.480 · Speaker 1
Well, I know, and it's been reported by several media outlets that I am the most hated man at the UN. And that's not hyperbole, is not an exaggeration, I feel it. I have the scars to prove it. That's no great secret. So we know that many despise me. But it's interesting that from time to time you will get a moral minority.
People will quietly whisper to me that, you know, I actually agree with what you say.
00:00:40.600 — 00:01:36.370 · Speaker 2
Every year at the United Nations, something happens that would be almost funny if it weren't so damaging. Member states gather, including some of the world's worst human rights abusers Iran, China, Russia. And they spend a significant portion of their time doing one thing condemning Israel, not Syria, not North Korea, Israel.
Between 2015 and 2024, the UN General Assembly passed 173 resolutions against Israel and just 80 against every other country on Earth combined. My guest today has spent decades inside that room documenting it, fighting it, and refusing to let the world look away. He's the executive director of UN watch.
One of the most important watchdog organizations at the United Nations, and one of the most effective voices for accountability in the UN today.
00:01:36.450 — 00:02:06.980 · Speaker 1
Israel's 1.5 million Arabs, whatever challenges they face, enjoy full rights to vote and to be elected in the Knesset. They work as doctors and lawyers. They serve on the Supreme Court. Now, I would like to ask the members of that commission that commissioned that report, the Arab states from which we just heard, Egypt, Iraq and the others.
How many Jews live in your countries? How many Jews lived in Egypt, Iraq? Jordan? Kuwait? Lebanon? Libya? Morocco, Oman, Palestine. Once upon a time, the Middle East was full of Jews. Algeria had 140,000 Jews. Algeria. Where are your Jews?
00:02:08.060 — 00:02:15.060 · Speaker 1
Egypt used to have 75,000 Jews. Where are your Jews? Syria. You had tens of thousands of Jews. Where are your Jews?
00:02:16.300 — 00:02:32.100 · Speaker 1
Iraq. You had over 135,000 Jews. Where are your Jews? Mr. president, where is the real apartheid? Why is there a UN commission on the Middle East that does not include Israel from the 1960s and 70s they refused to include Israel. Where is the apartheid? Mr. president?
00:02:33.660 — 00:02:41.540 · Speaker 1
Mr. president, why are we meeting today on an agenda item singling out only one state, the Jewish state, for targeting. Where is the apartheid Mr. president?
00:02:42.140 — 00:02:55.540 · Speaker 2
Hillel neuer, welcome to the honest take. You've walked into that chamber. I mean I must imagine feels hostile. You've confronted dictators directly. What does that feel like?
00:02:55.700 — 00:04:06.280 · Speaker 3
Yeah. Well, look, it's uh. It's not pleasant. I'll say that it's not pleasant to walk in a room where you look around you, and it's being run by the dictators and state sponsors of terrorism, or those who are complicit, those who may be democracies but in one form or other are complicit. It's not a pleasant feeling.
And then you have the UN officials who are ostensibly neutral, but, you know, sometimes can be themselves unfriendly. To put it mildly. So you're walking into a hostile arena. It's not pleasant. I know I have my 90s to speak, and you try to make it count. So. So you kind of buckle up, you suck it up, you go in there, you stand tall and you speak words of truth.
And, you know, to to be fair to the UN, uh, when, when it works, when, when we are allowed to speak, it's a tremendous opportunity. It's a global podium. Whether people watch it live at the UN or see it later on. Video. Words that are said at the United Nations, at that World Tribune Ah. Ah! Um. Ah. Given great attention.
So we see an opportunity to tell the truth and we seize it.
00:04:06.320 — 00:04:22.360 · Speaker 2
You have been involved in the UN for 20 years now. Was there a moment where you realized that the system is not what we thought it was, or maybe what it was supposed to be?
00:04:22.400 — 00:06:01.220 · Speaker 3
Yeah. Pretty quickly. I mean, I think one of the first things that I witnessed when I arrived here in Geneva was a special sitting that was called of what was then called the Human Rights Commission, different name, but basically the same body. They, uh, Israel had assassinated the founder of Hamas, Ahmed Yassin, who was a top terrorist.
And they had basically an emergency session to pay tribute to him. This was maybe a couple of days after I arrived. So, you know, the Orwellian nature of the body was manifest right from the beginning. The moment you walked in. You saw who the members were. You know, whether it was China or Cuba or Sudan. Gaddafi had been the chair.
His representative had been the chair a year before I came. So everyone kind of knew that, that it was a joke. Indeed. A year after I arrived, Kofi Annan himself, the secretary general of the UN, acknowledged that the Human Rights Council was rife with politicization and selectivity. He called to scrap it.
He said that members were there not to promote human rights, but to shield their own records of abuse. So the UN itself acknowledged that the thing was a joke. Proposed a reform. The the the newly named Human Rights Council in in June 2006. So it's now been really 20 years. And sadly it's the same thing. You know, instead of commission it's called council.
But the members today include China, Cuba, Qatar. And they spend much of their time, not all of it, but much of their time not talking about the world's worst abuses, but focused on demonizing the tiny country of Israel.
00:06:01.340 — 00:06:36.780 · Speaker 2
Some of the statistics there are shocking in terms of demonizing Israel. So since 2015, 173 General Assembly resolutions against Israel versus 80 for every other country combined. Can you walk me through how this machine works? When people say the UN condemned Israel, who is actually saying that you already just mentioned the difference between the Human Rights Council and the Human Rights Commission.
It seems like in making a new one. The same problem still exists. I mean, is this a structural thing? That was four questions.
00:06:36.820 — 00:09:23.060 · Speaker 3
Yeah. It's okay. Look, I'd say the main the main distinction to keep in mind at the UN are the agencies or bodies that are run by member states, where the UN, you could say, acts as a forum for it's a place where member states get together and vote on a decision, a legislative acts versus the UN employees. Okay, so Gutierrez is the top UN employee.
He's a secretary general, and there's thousands of UN employees. Uh, might be the head of Unrra, the head of Ocha, the humanitarian agency. They're all salaried UN people, and they also are actors. They also can condemn the US and Israel and have been since the Iran war began. And so those are the salaried people.
And then the political bodies or the legislative bodies, the member state bodies. So whether it's the UN General Assembly in New York, 193 countries, whether it's the Human Rights Council, which is kind of a microcosm of that 47 countries, but always divided, distributed by regional allocation. So in every body, whether it's the 193 member General Assembly, the 47 nation Human Rights Council, there's a certain amount from Africa, from Europe, from Asia and so forth.
And to answer your question, when it says the UN condemned Israel, So you mentioned statistics from the UN General Assembly. Uh, how does that happen? Well, someone has to introduce a resolution who introduces the resolutions on Israel. It is typically, in most cases, the Arab and Islamic states led by the Palestinians.
So it's the Palestinians with the support of the Arab states, the Muslim states. You know, keep in mind there are about 22 Arab states and then an additional 30 plus Muslim states, for a total of 56 Muslim states. For example, Pakistan is not Arab, but it's Muslim. Iran is the same Indonesia. So you have Arab and Islamic states, and there are automatically 56 countries.
So that gets you, you know, almost a third of the way there, more than 25% of the way there. And then all the dictatorships vote for them. The North Korea's, the Cuba's, the Belarus, they all vote with the Palestinians. And so very quickly, you get what we call the automatic majority. And I would say it's worse than that because sadly, many of the Europeans, I mean, West European democracies vote for about two thirds of these resolutions.
They go along to get along. And so when the UN condemns Israel, usually it's the General Assembly, the Human Rights Council. It's usually those kinds of resolutions sponsored by the Arab and Islamic states and the Palestinians, but supported by the automatic majority. But it can also be Gutierrez condemning Israel.
That's not a member state. He's an employee, but kind of knows where the wind is blowing. So you can get both of those kinds of condemnations.
00:09:23.180 — 00:09:35.380 · Speaker 2
You talked about the European countries starting to join with the Arab blocs. Is that has that been increasing? Has that been trending in any direction, or is that just been a been a thing?
00:09:35.420 — 00:10:22.150 · Speaker 3
Yes. For many years the the Western European countries, the EU countries, uh, support many of the anti-Israel resolutions. So that's not new. Trying to think if you see a trend, I would say the following that on the annual resolutions, many of these resolutions that you read off of statistics of, you know, nearly 200 resolutions on Israel in the past ten years.
Those are typically annual resolutions. And I would say those are more or less the same. I would say there's a difference in that. Some of the new resolutions, maybe dealing with the Gaza war or other things, probably had more European support than they would have had ten years ago. And on a sort of new resolution.
So I'd say things are probably getting they've been terrible at the UN and probably getting a little worse.
00:10:22.230 — 00:10:30.350 · Speaker 2
You've called it a hijacked institution, the UN. Can we? Can you walk us through how we got from Eleanor Roosevelt to now?
00:10:30.630 — 00:12:43.890 · Speaker 3
Yeah. I mean, you're quite right to mention Eleanor Roosevelt. She was the great humanitarian of the age, and she was the founding chair of the UN Human Rights Commission. Her deputy chair was René Cassar, the French legal philosopher. So we're talking about some of the most eminent figures of human rights, humanitarianism, international law, as the founders of human rights at the UN.
Then you fast forward to 2003 and as I mentioned before, the chair of the Human Rights Commission is not Eleanor Roosevelt. It's the representative of the murderous Gaddafi regime. So from Eleanor Roosevelt to Muammar Gaddafi, the rise and fall of human rights at the UN. How did it happen? Well, the eminent idealists were quickly replaced by member states.
This happened very early on, already in the 1940s. So you quite quickly had governments rather than individuals. And I would say that by the time you get into the 50s and 60s, you know, two things happen. One is the UN changes instead of being populated by many democracies. Instead, it's many from decolonization.
Many dictatorships joined anti-Western governments. So you began to have, by the 1960s, an anti-Western coalition led by the Soviet Union to attack either the US and the West or Israel by proxy. If you were afraid to attack the US, you would attack Israel. So that that, you know. And that, of course, reached its low point in the infamous 1975 declaration, Zionism as racism.
So that, in a nutshell, is the UN getting hijacked by dictatorships, changing its composition. And its specifically at the Human Rights Council. I would say that as that body acquired more influence and power to shame countries. This is by the 80s, let's say. Then the dictatorship said, you know what?
We don't care a thing about? We don't care a whit about human rights, but we do care about how to violate them with impunity. And if there's a body that's going to be calling us out, we better get elected to that body. So Sudan committing genocide was elected. China subjugating one fifth of the world's population.
Regular member Cuba, a police state for six decades. Their regular members of the Human Rights Council.
00:12:43.930 — 00:12:52.180 · Speaker 2
The shift seems to have been around the oil crisis in the 70s when. When everyone kind of turned on Israel.
00:12:52.220 — 00:13:12.420 · Speaker 3
Yes. You know, I think there are multiple factors. Um, as I indicated, um, the oil is part of it. And you're quite right. 1970s after the Yom Kippur War, the first time it was used as a major weapon. Arab states told African countries and others, if you don't break relations with Israel, you lose the oil. So that was in gadhafi, was giving out money, was bribing African,
00:13:13.500 — 00:14:00.910 · Speaker 3
uh, dictators to vote against Israel. So, yes, the the the oil, the money, which isn't necessarily hatred of Jews, but it's economic interest. The effect might be hatred of Jews, might be an anti-Semitic effect, but the motive might just be purely economic. Those are factors, as are the factors of vote trading, factors of fear of terrorism.
And those are all you could put in the realpolitik category, which would, let's say, not an anti-Semitic motivation, even if the effect might be anti-Semitic. And then separately, you do have countries that clearly are. Um, you do meet diplomats who are hostile to Jews and where the anti-Semitism does seem to be a more overt element.
I think both both are relevant in this discussion.
00:14:00.950 — 00:14:27.430 · Speaker 2
The irony is that Israel has called a colonialist state over and over again. Yet it is the state with the least natural resources that would be ideal to be a colonial state. How much of this is the how much of this is the academic spillover of, you know, Orientalism and colonial postcolonial theory? And how much is more, you know, as you say, realpolitik and economic interests.
00:14:27.470 — 00:16:45.260 · Speaker 3
Well, I think they might be conflated. You I think you may have you may have both together. Right. You certainly there is ideology and we shouldn't dismiss it. There are many people on the internet and otherwise say, oh, so-and-so is attacking Israel. How much are they being paid? You know. All right. You know, maybe some influencers are being paid.
Maybe Tucker Carlson is getting money from Qatar and Iran and others. Entirely possible. He did get some money for some consulting or something that was disclosed somewhere. So some people, yes, some people are being paid. And I'm sure at the UN, bribes can play a role either to an individual or to their government getting financial benefits.
Part of the colonial discourse might be someone who doesn't really mean it, but is just using the language of the day that is used to demonize a country. You know, then there are others who do believe it. You know, the as you talk about the academic situation, certainly since since the mid late 1970s, you had Edward Said's book Orientalism, accusing the West Israel of being some kind of, you know, conspiracy against Arabs and Muslims.
And I think clearly today in the West and on the left, there is this world view of oppressor versus oppressed colonial colonizer versus colonized. White versus people of color. And these neat, you know, rigid ideological boxes get applied to anything whether it fits or not. And some of these people may actually believe in it.
So, again, you know, Israel to call Israel a colonizer is a bit rich. It is the country, first of all, where the people who live there are worshiping the same God, uh, speaking the same language, um, uh, living on the same land as their Hebrew ancestors did 2000 years ago. That's not a colonizer. They're in their ancestral homeland.
It was recognized by the League of Nations as such. To, say, a Jew from Judea. The word Jew comes from Judea. To say that a Jew from in Judea as a colonizer is saying like a Roman, and Rome is a colonizer. It's absurd. So these things are, you know, are just slogans, but out of motivations of hate and otherwise, they catch on.
And many people around the world do believe them.
00:16:45.300 — 00:17:12.939 · Speaker 2
With the current situation in Iran, a group that has said nothing, virtually nothing during the murder of tens of thousands of protesters last month and the month before has just come out and regularly condemned the current strikes in Iran. You've called it a megaphone for the mullahs. Walk us through how that happens and what is going on now in the current.
What is it, the 61st session?
00:17:12.980 — 00:20:30.380 · Speaker 3
Yeah. Look, you know, I'd say there are two things happen that were, you know, by any objective measure, extraordinary. The first is the relative silence, indifference and inaction of top UN officials, top UN bodies regarding a massacre of tens of thousands of peaceful protesters in the space of two days.
We're talking about, I think, is January 8th and ninth, where the Islamic regime in Iran led by, among others, Ali Larijani, who was the top security official, head of the National Security Council of Iran. He's just been eliminated today. Justice was delivered to him, but he was he was the architect of the brutal crackdown that massacred tens of thousands of innocent people.
And then, you know, you look for the reaction, and it's mostly crickets. Human Rights Council waited three weeks before doing anything. Okay. Since the protests began, we were every day calling for an emergency session. They were saying nothing. Finally, eventually, they held a special meeting. But the Gutierrez waited a long time and then issued a mild statement.
Didn't even appear in person. And you go across the board, many of the UN rapporteurs, there's about 87 UN special rapporteur. These are appointed by the Human Rights Council. They're supposed to be experts in different human rights subjects and regions. And most of them said nothing. I think about five of them issued a statement, five out of 87, then a few others cosigned.
But it took them a long time to get five to say something. And then so that's the silence, the inaction, the indifference which was extraordinary for such a. You know, one of the most horrific atrocities of the 21st century. And then and then suddenly America and Israel, at the pleading of Iranian people saying we are occupied and being massacred by this regime.
You need to help us. Please, President Trump, please help us. America and Israel heed their pleas and begin to attack the regime with hitting thousands of targets of the regime, their missiles, their nuclear facilities, their repressive machinery, the besiege. And suddenly the UN, which was silent on the massacre of Iranians, springs into action and multiple bodies.
Gutierrez, Unesco, Unicef, UN women, numerous UN rapporteurs. Whoa! We condemn the the US and Israel. What are they doing? You know we care about victims in Iran. Really? You were silent when tens of thousands were massacred. Now that the regime is being targeted, you pretend that you care about Iranians.
So they found whenever civilians were killed, there was reports of a tragic airstrike that mistakenly hit a school. And that became the entire focus of their narrative. As if that was intentional, they accused America of a war crime, which is only if it's deliberate. Um, not a mistake. If you've attacked 6000 targets and one out of 6000 is a tragic, horrible mistake, that is a horrible tragedy.
And there it will be, an independent investigation and that's merited. But to go to go from that to saying that this was a war crime and deliberate, which the UN either said or implied was really nothing. But as you said, quoting me, the UN acting as a megaphone for the mullahs, uh, doing a propaganda blitz for one of the world's most murderous regimes.
00:20:30.380 — 00:20:45.230 · Speaker 2
You mentioned the rapporteurs. Francesca Albanese is notorious in our world, at least for her unrelenting, insane criticism of Israel that just doesn't end. She recently called Israel the Epstein regime.
00:20:45.270 — 00:21:00.710 · Speaker 4
Israel is responsible for one of the cruelest genocides in modern history at the same time. Since October 2023, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange has soared by 213% in US dollars.
00:21:00.750 — 00:22:06.640 · Speaker 1
War is not genocide, but in your report, there's no war at all. It's only about Israel. We ask, why does your report never mention once the October 7th invasion and massacre, or even the word Hamas? Why does your report never once mention Hezbollah on October 8th? Joining Hamas's war, they began firing thousands of missiles at Israel.
Why does your report never once mention the Islamic Republic of Iran, which armed and trained its proxies and orchestrated the attacks, which itself fired hundreds of missiles at Israel? They openly call for genocide against the Israeli people. Why didn't you find reason to mention them once? Distinguished delegates.
This report is an inversion silence on aggressors openly pursuing genocide and demonization for democracy, defending its people from a multi front war. Miss Albanese, do you now understand why a Swiss university canceled your panel this week for lack of balance? Mr. president, on April 1st you released the report of the UN investigation, which found that the rapporteurs trip in Australia was funded by external groups.
Miss Albanese, will you released the documentation? Who funded you?
00:22:06.760 — 00:22:09.200 · Speaker 5
We will continue then with the next speaker.
00:22:09.440 — 00:22:18.760 · Speaker 2
How does the rapporteur system work? From what I understand, there is very little accountability. How does she get there? How does this how does this come to be?
00:22:18.800 — 00:24:35.500 · Speaker 3
Yeah. Look, it's a it's a topic that is not well understood and not well exposed. And it needs to be. And actually, UN watch has a major report coming out soon about the UN rapporteurs. You know, I mentioned before about the UN having distinguishing between two dimensions. One is member states that meet at a UN session and they vote.
And it's just different member states voting, but voting within a UN body to adopt a UN decision. And then you have the UN employees. But then there's a third dimension which we need to look at, which are experts, appointees who are not member states. They're not employees, so they can't be easily fired.
They're actually unpaid, and they don't really answer to anyone. They're called the independent special rapporteurs. And there's about 87 of them on different subjects, on themes like torture and housing and toxic waste and all kinds of things you can imagine, and then regions like Syria, North Korea and Palestine, so that those are the UN rapporteurs.
They're appointed by the Human Rights Council for three years. They can be renewed for another three years. And Francesca Albanese was appointed on April 1st, 2022, when she was nominated by the Human Rights Council's vetting committee. We sounded the alarm. We said, this is a horrible person who has repeatedly equated the Palestinian situation with the Holocaust, effectively accusing Israelis of being Nazis.
She's done this for well over a decade. That's her expertise. And we called out numerous of her other inflammatory and libelous and anti-Semitic statements. The Human Rights Council didn't care. Or maybe they did care. That's what they wanted. They appointed her on April 1st, 2022. She went on to do exactly what they wanted.
She has repeatedly justified Hamas before the massacre. She told Hamas, you have the right to resist. She said that at a Hamas organized conference in Gaza and then when since October 7th, on the day of October 7th, she said, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. We got to put this in context. The Palestinian violence has a context.
Don't rush to to say things about what they're doing. It has a context that can be understood. And, you know, since then, she's become one of the most pro Hamas, anti-Semitic UN officials in history. And, uh, yeah.
00:24:35.540 — 00:24:39.750 · Speaker 2
That was picked up by Gutierrez to the put this in context, was it not?
00:24:39.790 — 00:25:14.110 · Speaker 3
He did his own almost identical comment. It's true. She she wrote on the day of October 7th, we need to put it in context. And he about ten days later, maybe two weeks later, he said similar words. He said, well, he said, it's important. He said, I condemn Hamas. But it's important also to note that the Hamas attacks did not happen in a vacuum.
Right. Again, there's a context. Didn't happen in a vacuum. So that was his line. And he went on to enumerate numerous alleged Palestinian grievances effectively, like Albanese legitimizing justifying what Hamas had done.
00:25:14.150 — 00:25:42.600 · Speaker 2
There seems to be a feedback loop that is important to understand, especially given the UN's, you know, real halo effect. And I think we saw this pretty clearly with the genocide report that came out. You know, a media outlet publishes unverified claims. NGOs cite those as as fact. That stuff ends up in UN documents and then the media sites that as established fact.
Is there any accountability in that?
00:25:42.640 — 00:28:02.700 · Speaker 3
Well, there ought to be. And you're quite right to point the finger at the ecosystem. We can see the cycle where a lie is told can be told by Hamas, it can be told by an NGO that might be have people working at Hamas. We learned recently, NGO monitor had revealed that numerous NGOs in Gaza all had some kind of a Hamas minder, sort of local guy working for them, who was literally reporting to Hamas on what's happening, you know, with that NGO.
And he was sort of their their guy in that NGO. So you have you might have an NGO putting out a lie condemning Israel for some atrocity. It might be Hamas itself, then a UN official like Albanese, for example, or any other UN agency will put out a statement. Now it becomes a UN statement, as you said, the halo effect.
It has the imprimatur of international legitimacy and credibility and morality. And now that the UN said, well, the journalists are just waiting for that. UN said they're starving, UN said there's genocide. And then the BBC, the Guardian, the New York Times, they write it down and now it goes all around the world.
UN said, you know, Israel bombs hospital, kills 500 people. Well, it never happened. The whole thing's a lie. But the moment you have un said that for many is the UN said even if it's, it's, it's it's later revealed that the person saying it was Francesca Albanese who's a notorious anti-Semite who supports Hamas has no credibility.
But for many who are in this ecosystem, they have a narrative, and the narrative requires that you omit and suppress information that could undermine your narrative. So it would undermine the narrative of Reuters to indicate that Albanese is the first expert in history of the UN to be condemned by Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the US, Argentina, the UK for, among other things, Holocaust and version anti-Semitism.
Gross violations of the UN Code of Conduct. They ought to mention it. That's enormously relevant and newsworthy for any article quoting her, but they don't mention it because that would undermine the entire narrative of the story. UN condemns well, if the UN person is a scoundrel who's clearly prejudiced, then the reader will take a very different impression from that article.
So they omit that. That's quite scandalous.
00:28:02.740 — 00:28:08.380 · Speaker 2
What do we do about somebody like Francesca Albanese? Is there any accountability to the rapporteur system?
00:28:08.420 — 00:31:51.740 · Speaker 3
Yeah, well, very little and in practice almost none. And that's why we know about them. Okay. There are UN officials. And to mention a guy his name is Craig Moriba mlk IBER Craig Obama, viciously anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, UN official. I believe he's of Palestinian descent, grew up in Buffalo, New York, but worked for the UN for decades, viciously anti-Israel.
But there was a limit to what he could do in his UN capacity, because at the end of the day, he he worked for, you know, a UN office, ultimately to Guterres. And if he would say openly anti-Semitic things in his UN capacity, he'd have to answer to someone. Okay. Now, answering to Gutierrez doesn't mean a whole lot.
He's been quite problematic, to put it mildly, but historically it was some kind of accountability. The rapporteurs have none of that. So his good friend is Francesco Albanese, and they often quote each other. He recently was sort of pushed out of the UN because actually it's actually a good example.
We did reveal some of his his hateful tweets and he was kind of pushed out of the UN. So there you had accountability because he was an employee and he had made kind of anti-Semitic tweets, and he got pushed out, um, versus his close friend and collaborator Francesca Albanese, who's a rapporteur, basically has no accountability.
The secretary general cannot fire her. The only entity that could fire her would be the Human Rights Council, and there's no established procedure they could meet and resolve in a resolution to remove her. But she has support of a majority, so there's no votes for that. Technically, there's a body of her peers that could process a complaint, but it's her friends.
It's her peers. They act more as a union that shields and circles the wagons than as an entity that disciplines their fellow rapporteurs. So they whenever anyone makes a complaint, they just throw it in the garbage and say, no, no, everything's fine. So that's a meaningless body, which sometimes the member states who want to avoid action, they want to be evasive.
France or Germany will go, oh no, no, no, give it to the committee. Give it to the coordination committee. They'll process the complaint knowing that this committee has never rebuked a rapporteur, that it's a body that just is her fellow rapporteurs. It's a meaningless procedure. Um, so so the end of the day, the basically no accountability.
Very hard to remove her. Um, and she has the position now, according to the UN. For the next two and a half years, we've established and we've shown how her her renewal that was done a year ago was done unlawfully. Against the procedure. So we take a position that she no longer has immunity. But according to the UN.
She's still there for another two years. So what can you do? What's the recourse? You you at least get get decent people on the record to call her out. And so we're glad that we did succeed in getting France, Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, Argentina, the UK, Latvia, Estonia, and a couple of others that I'm forgetting.
Hungary to go on the record. Call her out. Condemn her for Holocaust conversion, anti-Semitism, supporting terrorism, calling for her to resign. So that's very significant and we hope others do it. It's scandalous. I should mention that on April 2nd, she's due to receive from three Belgian universities a honorary doctorate, Which is, you know, just underscores how anti-Semitic Belgium is the first UN official in history to be condemned for a Holocaust inversion and anti-Semitism by France, Germany, Canada and the US is being awarded by three Belgian universities.
So that is scandalous. And I hope before April 2nd that they scratch that. So far, not likely.
00:31:51.780 — 00:31:58.420 · Speaker 2
It's a big statement, considering the UN has had some pretty scandalous people in in high positions in the past.
00:31:58.460 — 00:31:59.540 · Speaker 3
Yes. That's right.
00:32:00.460 — 00:32:22.260 · Speaker 2
Um, back to the Human Rights Council. Not only are the rapporteurs kind of institutionally stuck there, but there's agenda seven, which is specifically for Israel, and Israel is the only country that has something like that. Can you walk us through what that is, and is there any way to get that off the books?
00:32:22.340 — 00:33:54.650 · Speaker 3
Yeah. Well, good. You know, if someone shows up at the Human Rights Council, they will, uh, one of the first things they will see is the agenda. Every meeting, every session we meet in for a month in September, March and June and every meeting follows the same agenda. Agenda item two report of the High Commissioner.
Agenda item three civil and Political rights. Agenda item seven human rights violations in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories. So the only country in the world, Israel, that gets its own agenda item. So you have one agenda item, item four for human rights violations around the world, and then one on Israel alone.
That's item seven. It's clearly an act of discrimination. Even Ban Ki moon condemned the adoption of this agenda item back in 2007, when it was institutionalized. It sort of built into the Human Rights Council. A majority of the council. I might need approval of the General Assembly, but basically majority of the council could remove it.
The numbers aren't there, but it is an example of how bias and discrimination is not partial or minor or trivial. It's built in to the very program of work of the Council, where the only country in the world singled out under its own day, its own agenda item is not North Korea, not Syria, not Sudan, Russia, China, Cuba, but the only democracy in the Middle East.
With all its flaws, a liberal democracy in the Middle East is the only country gets its own agenda item. Israel.
00:33:54.650 — 00:34:21.450 · Speaker 2
You keep going back, you know, you keep on showing up and trying to work within the system. It seems like it's structurally broken, at least from somebody looking at this from the outside. But you keep going back. Is there is there a way to make the U.N. work again in the way it was supposed to when it was founded?
00:34:21.490 — 00:35:11.459 · Speaker 3
Yes, there is, but it's certainly hard to see that day from where we are now. It would require a change in attitude by many, many governments. You want to start with the democracies. Those are the ones you think you should get at the beginning, as we mentioned. Many of the Western European countries go along with the anti-Israel bigotry.
Not all of it, but but a good amount of it. So you got to start with that. Then, you know, the dictatorship is going to be much harder because they're naturally going to support dictatorships like Iran and Libya and what have you that are anti-Israel. So it's it's possible, but it requires getting governments to to change their ways.
And it's something that on the horizon, if you can get a few of them to oppose, that's already an accomplishment. If you can get a Germany or Netherlands or UK
00:35:12.580 — 00:35:47.350 · Speaker 3
to take a moral stand, even if it's in the opposition. Historically, that's been significant. And certainly after October 7th, many governments are more hostile to Israel, including countries where there's a center left government such as Australia, the UK, Canada become more hostile. So it's hard to see, you know, how you get out of the current predicament, but there's no alternative because the UN is not going away.
So it's our obligation to press each of our governments to uphold the true values of the UN, which include impartiality of fighting terrorism and not rewarding terrorists.
00:35:47.790 — 00:35:52.750 · Speaker 2
Do you know how other people within the UN feel about you?
00:35:52.830 — 00:36:33.960 · Speaker 3
Well, I know, and it's been reported by several media outlets that I am the most hated man at the UN. And that's not hyperbole, is not an exaggeration, I feel it. And if I had, um, you know, I have the scars to to prove it. And of course, people who watch the videos can see me being attacked and interrupted all the time.
So that's no great secret. So we know that many, uh, despise me. But it's interesting that from time to time you will get a moral minority. People will quietly whisper to me that, you know, I actually agree with what you say. And so we've had a few of those those episodes over the years. That's also a reality.
There is a minority who understands that we're telling the truth.
00:36:34.120 — 00:36:39.240 · Speaker 2
Why are they afraid to say that? Full throated? I mean, you say whisper it.
00:36:39.520 — 00:37:41.490 · Speaker 3
Yeah, well, there's a lot of political pressure. There are 56 Islamic states, only one Jewish state. So everyone wants to be in their good graces to get 56 votes from Qatar and Iran and so forth. So that's a part of it. Um, then, you know, the Arab states still have vast amounts of oil that's influential. We talked about vote trading, sovereign wealth funds.
Qatar could invest in your country billions or not, depending how you vote. Fear of terrorism, maybe Hamas, Hezbollah, um, ISIS, IRGC might attack you because you're one of the handful of countries that voted in a principled way. So many different factors influence how countries act and think at the UN.
And of course, I would be remiss not to mention a Non-rational factor, a non realpolitik, but nevertheless a real factor which is anti-Semitism. There is hatred of the Jewish people in various parts of the world, and sometimes it manifests itself in hostility to Israel at the UN. These are some of the factors that explain why countries act and vote the way they do.
00:37:41.570 — 00:37:45.930 · Speaker 2
Would it be fair to call it institutional at the UN institutional anti-Semitism?
00:37:45.970 — 00:38:01.970 · Speaker 3
Yes, yes. Sadly, whether it's the agenda item, whether it's the, um, you know, insanely disproportionate amount of resolutions condemning Israel, whether it's the UN officials who are silent on Iran but jump at any opportunity to attack Israel. Sadly, it is very much institutionalized.
00:38:02.010 — 00:38:04.090 · Speaker 2
Well, thank you so much for joining us.
00:38:04.170 — 00:38:05.370 · Speaker 3
Thank you for having me.
00:38:05.450 — 00:38:19.930 · Speaker 2
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